Top Shopify SEO Problems And How To Fix Them
Shopify is a great e-commerce platform but is Shopify bad for SEO? Are there SEO problems that you will need to fix if you go with Shopify.
Collections URLs, duplicate content, bulk editing meta descriptions, redirects, google analytics are some of the issues you should be aware when looking into Shopify. Below we explain how you can fix each of this, and how you can improve your SEO on Shopify.
So, you’ve taken the next step on your commercial journey by opening an online store through Shopify. Well done! However, the journey doesn’t end here. Many Shopify stores take a long time to get their first sale, and your store will experience greater visitor and sales volume if it ranks highly in the SERPs – that’s a no-brainer.
Less straightforward, however, is actually achieving the rankings that get your page there. There are a range of possible problems, specific to Shopify, that stand in the way of achieving your SEO goals.
The following article will explain some of the top Shopify SEO problems, and how to fix them- allowing your Shopify store to hopefully hit the front page in no time!
Is Shopify bad for SEO?
Shopify is good for SEO, but you need to be aware of these issues and fix them:
1. Duplicate Content
When making a collection of related products on Shopify, or classifying items as products, one SEO problem is the automatic generation of duplicate content.
But how- and why- does this happen?
Problem of duplicate content on Shopify
The problem starts when you add a product to a collection.
Despite there already being a URL set for the product page, adding another product to that same collection will create an additional URL for the collection page.
Shopify then treats the collection URL as canonical, rather than the URL of the product page which people may be searching for.
As you can imagine, this is dreadful for SEO, as this stops the indexing of intended product pages.
Solution
To fix this, you’ll need to start from scratch by editing the back-end of your Shopify store’s theme.
This is another job for your website guy as it requires coding expertise.
For those confident in their coding ability, implement the following code at the back-end of your store theme.
Find the relevant code in the snippet section of each product, and implement the following:
<a href="{{ product.url }}" class="product-grid-item">
2. Ignoring Google Analytics
Another common problem you may face is ignoring Google Analytics.
Many site owners see that Shopify offers their own analytics service, and it’s not a huge leap of logic to assume that their statistics will be the most relevant for your store, right?
Wrong!
Though Shopify analytics can be useful in limited applications, Google Analytics outperforms it on every single possible level due to the volume and depth of their metrics and reports, respectively.
Problem
Webmasters ignore Google Analytics at their own peril, relying on subpar datasets or simply not paying attention to analytics at all!
Those who practice such behavior are blinding themselves to valuable user information that goes far beyond mere ‘sessions’ and ‘visitors’.
Solution
Don’t ignore Google Analytics! It’s a tool ready for use – utilize it.
Google Analytics offers so much more than Shopify, or other analytics providers.
Google Analytics is superior because they come from the source. More than any other company, Google understands SEO– they write the rules, after all!
Pay attention to whatever data is available from them, and use it to improve the SEO of your Shopify store.
3. Locked robots.txt
Another candidate in the list of the top Shopify SEO problems and how to fix them is the issue of locked robots.txt.
In line with other restrictions of the platform, webmasters are prohibited from editing the robot.txt file of their store.
Shopify believes this to be helpful, saving you time by eliminating the work involved here.
However, this is a problem for when products are no longer in stock, or collections discontinued – you can’t put nofollow or noindex commands manually into the code of these pages.
These defunct pages may continue to pop up in the SERPs, blocking the SEO of product pages that are still in use.
Problem
You can’t edit the robot.txt file of your products or collections, resulting in sub-optimal pages potentially overranking your intended SEO pages.
This is because noindex or nofollow commands cannot be inputted into the code of these discontinued pages.
Solution
As with other fixes, to solve this problem one must edit the theme of each page.
Within the <head> of every redundant page, add meta robots tags that will prevent search engines from crawling and indexing them.
4. Shopify Handling Redirects
The trailing slash redirect is a staple piece of code, common to web pages.
The slash “/” acts as a signifier of the directory, which Google can interpret. It treats pages with and without the slash as different pages.
Shopify by default ends all URLs without a slash, but variations of the page with and without a slash are available to both search engines and users.
Problem
The inconsistency of which page the search engines and/or users will access means that they might not be viewing the main version of said page, instead viewing an outdated or defunct version.
This creates SEO problems, because webmasters can’t control which version of a page is being interacted with.
Solution
It’s recommended to webmasters they use canonical tags that indicate to Google which page is to be indexed.
This is not an ideal fix, as it can interfere with analytics data. However, another fix simply is not available at this time.
5. Inability to Edit Tag Pages
The inability to edit tag pages is one of the most common SEO problems those using Shopify deal with.
Tags are used to organize various parts of your ecommerce page, particularly the grouping together of similar or related products.
Optimized tags will not only enable positive user interaction with your store (due to it being well-organised), but can actually be utilized for SEO purposes.
However, there isn’t an easy way within the Shopify system to optimize tags.
Problem
The problem here lies within the build of Shopify itself – there simply isn’t a built-in way to effectively organize your tags so they work towards your SEO goals.
Solution
Download one of the many available apps that can be used to optimize tag pages. Though they are built for the purpose, none offer total control. Or if you prefer, you can add code to your Shopify product pages that will enable you to write custom content for each possible tag.
Wrapping Up: Is Shopify good for SEO?
To wrap up, it seems most of the optimization issues that crop up in Shopify can be easily fixed, and are not really a problem in the long term.
When considering the top Shopify SEO problems and how to fix them, note that there is no easy way within the platform to solve these issues. Rather, the solution often lies in the alteration of your back-end- particularly in the code of your chosen theme.
There are plenty of strores that are ranking really well on Google for their keywords. This means that with a little bit of effort, you can easily fix all your Shopify SEO problems, so that your store has the opportunity to rank high on Google.